BATON ROUGE (Louisiana Illuminator) — The state Department of Education has informed members of a special education advisory panel they will be removed from their seats, though they will be allowed to convene once more after sharing their displeasure with officials.
Members of the Special Education Advisory Panel (SEAP) received an unsigned email on Feb. 23, 2024, that dismissed them of their duties and canceled their next scheduled meeting this month.
SEAP was created under the authority of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), a federal law requiring states to comply with certain requirements to receive funding for special education programs. One of the requirements is to have and maintain an advisory committee.
The advisory panel is under the Louisiana Department of Education, and it advises the department and the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) on how policy changes affect students with disabilities.
The March meeting would be the only meeting during the legislative session to advise BESE and state education officials on bills the Legislature is considering.
Former SEAP members and parents of children with disabilities expressed concerns with the surprise dismissals.
Kathryne Hart, a parent of a child with disabilities, said she was lucky enough to understand the policy process, but many other parents and individuals with disabilities rely on SEAP members to advocate for them.
Opponents of the move believe the reason behind it was to stop SEAP members from meeting the same month the Louisiana Legislative Auditor is expected to release a report that could potentially be critical of the state’s handling of special education services.
In September of last year, the Legislative Auditor released a report that said the Louisiana Department of Education had failed to investigate several complaints from parents of special education children. The reasoning behind the dismissal of parents’ claims was technical in nature, and the auditor suggested additional steps could have been taken by the department to investigate these complaints and alleviate the technical issues before investigations.
The second part of this report, the content of which is currently unknown, is expected to be released this month.
In response, state Superintendent of Education Cade Brumley said SEAP was just one of six panels that the board wished to reconstitute. BESE spearheaded this initiative to clear the SEAP panel, the superintendent said. With eight of the 11 board members being new, they want a say in the makeup of the advisory panels, he added.
Terms on the SEAP panel last three years, with one-third of the members rolling off every year. Appointments to the board must first go through a small committee made up of one BESE member, a representative of the state education department and two SEAP members. Brumley then has the final say in who is picked for the panel.
It is unclear how the department plans to move forward with repopulating the panel without any members to serve on the committee.
The application period for new panel members opened Thursday and ends April 8. The department encouraged former members to reapply.
“We want the best people on these committees, people that have the passion, people that have the experience and appreciate all the details, particularly with special education,” BESE 5th District representative Lance Harris, R-Alexandria, said. “… I fully expect that there are gonna be a lot of people that will be returning on a lot of these different committees because they bring that experience with them.”
Outgoing SEAP members Alvado Willis and Christi Gonzales said they would reapply to the panel.
Gonzales was named to the panel in 2022, so she should have had another year on the panel before needing to reapply. She is the parent of a child with disabilities and chairperson of the Louisiana Developmental Disabilities Council, a 28-member panel of governor’s appointees that evaluates services for disabled citizens.
Hart said there was no reason for the sudden changes ahead of the legislative session.
“BESE and the Superintendent could have informed the membership of this change in direction at the January or March meeting, accepted their reapplication or new applications in April, and seated a new panel in July without any disruption to the panel’s work during the legislative session,” Hart said in an email. “Instead a very bipartisan panel of self-advocates, parents, and educational professionals were dismissed in a partisan manner.”
Former members and concerned parents spoke out during a BESE committee meeting Tuesday. In an attempt to satisfy the crowd, Brumley said a March meeting would be scheduled before the SEAP members are removed.
The removal of members was not reversed.
By Allison Allsop
This story was updated to clarify SEAP members are being removed after they meet in later this month.
